Gamer Art: June 2021

Check out June’s Featured Gamer Art, a monthly column of art that I’ve found found in the past few weeks. Art can include paintings, drawings, digital art, physical crafts, cosplay and more.

Yeah, I know I’m a few days late on the posting of this… but it’s still the art that I found and collected over the course of June. This month has cosplay, drawings and digital art from Dead Space, WoW, Pokemon, Ratchet and Clank, Devil May Cry, the Witcher, and Guilty Gear.

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Shadowlands: What Should I Play?

Class Icons.

You can vote for which class I should play at this straw poll link: https://www.strawpoll.me/20918880

I’m having a bit of trouble deciding what I want to main in this upcoming expansion. This problem is generally amplified by being unable to get beta access to test the characters to get a feel for them. So far, I’ve made very little progress eliminating options. I’m further undecided because I’m not even set on a role. While I lean heavily towards dps main, the value of being able to tank mythic dungeons or heal PVP is not lost on me, and maybe tank or heal? Or maybe a class that can do all 3, but, then I’d probably only be exceptional at once of those. So, what do I choose: Melee or range? Tank, dps or heals? In this post I’ll break down the what and the why and there could be some links to some resources to make your decision too.

The Contenders:

  • Paladin: Ret MS, Prot/Holy OS
  • Death Knight: Unholy/Frost MS, Blood OS
  • Demon Hunter: Havoc or Vengeance MS/OS
  • Monk: Windwalker MS, Mistweaver OS
  • Mage: Any Spec
  • Hunter: Beast Mastery or Marksman MS/OS
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Daily Thoughts: Mists of Pandaria First Impressions

I wanted to give a few days of being max level before attempting to post my commentary on the expansion. My opinion, however, has not changed since I reached level 86 to level 90 and to now. Mists of Pandaria is a solid upgrade and addition to World of Warcraft. If you read my last post, or feel like going to read it now, you’d have seen that I was indecisive regarding what character to make my ‘main’ for MoP. In the end, my Death Knight won out over the rest. I leveled from 85-86 as Unholy, but quickly switched to Frost. Howling Blast, hitting all targets for decent damage and applying dots, is simply one of the most superior AoE options available right now – particularly for questing, given the heavy movement that comes from running to and from mobs/nodes/etc. Questing was easily the most enjoyable that it has ever been to me, possibly with the exception of when I started playing back in The Burning Crusade. I wouldn’t think this is because TBC quests were better (they weren’t), but just for the new factor at the time. The zones were amazing. It’s been quite sometime since some visage in WoW made me think, “Damn, that’s pretty awesome looking.”

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What to Play in Mists of Pandaria?

With World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, only 3 days and 10 hours away (as of the time of this writing), I’m finding myself in a bit of a pickle – I’ve yet to choose a class and spec that I intend to play. For some, this choice may be simple. Perhaps you only have one character at the Cataclysm max level of 85, making it the most sensible choice to level. I’ve managed to get every class leveled to max which completely exacerbates my indecision. Should I stay on my Death Knight to keep dishing out the diseases and protecting my face with blood shields? Should I revert to my previous main and lay down some holy wrath or healing on my Paladin? Any other class is also an option, except my poor abandoned rogue. I don’t much care to pay for a server transfer to get him on the same server as my guild. Maybe I should make a list:

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Weekend Update: Goblin Racial Nerf & Other 4.1 Hotfixes

The two most interesting changes recently to me are:

The ability for players to retain a second queue for a Battleground after they’ve already entered one has been removed. Previously, players were able to queue for two Battlegrounds, have one queue pop and retain their second queue while they decided if they wanted to join the one that was ready. This is no longer the case. When a Battleground queue pops players will automatically be removed from all other active queues. To queue for a different Battleground it will be necessary to finish the match and queue again. This solves a design issue in that the old system gave players an opening to abandon their teammates if things weren’t going as well as they’d hoped; and it also solves some queue system inconsistencies that were being caused as a side effect of how the old system functioned.

It will be nice to see (hopefully) fewer people disappearing in the middle of BG’s, particularly while I’m trying to kill them. Also,

The goblin racial Best Deals Anywhere should now only be applying to vendors with associated reputations. It no longer incorrectly applies to vendors with no attached reputations, nor does it apply to flight path costs. (Note: the displayed costs for flight paths require a client-side patch to update and are not currently reflecting this racial change). In addition, it is no longer possible for goblin characters exalted with their guild to receive an extra discount on top of the exalted faction discount from guild vendors.

I hear this means there is no longer a discount for the mats for the Vial of the Sands drake, someone should leave a comment if they can verify that. Death Knights also just got a bit of a frost DPS nerf, fortunately the left blood alone which is my main spec on that guy. It does make me a little sad that my warrior friend can out DPS me now. Full recently 4.1 hotfix notes after the break and a full list of all of their 4.1 hot fixes can be found on Blizzard’s site HERE.

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